FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 12, 2015

Contacts:

CJ Frogozo, 310.570.2622, cj@fitzgibbonmedia.com

Madison Donzis, 210.488.6220, madison@fitzgibbonmedia.com

Washington, DC — “For the first time ever, the head of the FBI has directly addressed race in a speech delivered at Georgetown University entitled, ‘Hard Truths: Law Enforcement and Race.’ However, while we acknowledge Director Comey’s decision to enter the critical conversation about systemic racial bias, violence and corruption within law enforcement across the country, his speech perpetuated many of the dangerous, discriminatory perspectives that uphold the crisis of violent and abusive policing.

“Director Comey presented false equivalencies around the police violence facing Black and brown Americans and the growing calls for systemic policing reform. Holding police accountable for addressing the crisis of discriminatory police misconduct is not ‘unfair,’ but is rather one of the most critical challenges facing our nation.

“We strongly challenge Comey’s argument that Black and brown communities are to blame for the daily terror and indignity of discriminatory policing. The reality is that law enforcement and leaders such as Director Comey and Attorney General Holder have the responsibility and obligation to address the violence and discrimination endemic to law enforcement.

“The problems of law enforcement are structural just as much as they are about the implicit racial bias of police. These problems require a complete overhaul of the systems, policies and practices that uphold discriminatory and violent policing, such as Stop and Frisk, Broken Windows policing, and so-called predictive policing. These practices incentivize police to target, harass and unjustly arrest Black and brown people for the most minor of issues.

“Comey holds the power to address the issues of violence and racism in policing and we urge him to move beyond words and into definitive action, starting with the collection of data referenced in his speech. We welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues further at a meeting with Director Comey, backed by the voices of more than 200,000 ColorOfChange members and our allies.”

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With more than one million members, ColorOfChange.org is the nation’s largest online civil rights organization.